I didn’t tell Shelly about Rebecca coming over or that we hung out after the fact. Not wanting to get her hopes up, I wanted to make sure I still felt good enough when I woke up before letting her know about my plans for the day. She could tell I was in better spirits when she walked in, though. It looked like there was a weight lifted off her back and I felt awful about how much I might’ve been upsetting the people around me, even if they were just upset for me because I was upset.
Maybe it wasn’t even right to say I was really upsetting them. It wasn’t like they were mad at me. They had all been very kind and supportive of me, but it was tough for them to see. That was a better way for me to look at it. It was tough on them to see where I was mentally. Then it became tough on me to see them feel helpless about my own helplessness. Everything was so frustrating. It was this giant circle where everything fed back into each other to create this weird, miserable loop that I was beyond sick of.
My sister made a small and easy dinner. I made sure to eat all my meals with her for both our sakes, so long as she was available. The last thing I needed was to just hole up in my room with every meal to eat alone. Just by seeing me in a noticeably better place, I could tell that Shelly was having a great evening. She was almost bubbly. Thankfully, she didn’t push it and ask me for a bunch of details. She just left it at saying I looked better before she went to bed with a warm smile on her face.
When she turned to head to her room, I nearly stopped her to ask her if a girl drawing you in her notebook was a good sign she might like you. I opened my mouth before she could go too far, but before I could say anything, I chickened out. At that moment, I didn’t want Shelly to know there might a girl who possibly liked me.
That night, no nightmares ruined my sleep. I felt comfortable shutting both the light and TV off. The darkness I’d missed wrapped around me to help me drift off for the night. It hit me hard just how much I hated sleeping with any kind of light on. With my improved mindset, I found one of the best nights of sleep I’d had in a while as my reward.
I woke up feeling good and was relieved to learn I had enough time to take a shower before Rebecca arrived. I was already nervous enough about going out again. Throwing on some rank body odor wasn’t something I wanted to add to my nerves. I made sure I shaved off any stubble while I lamented about needing a haircut. It looked fine enough still, but it was getting a bit long, even for my liking.
“Morning,” Shelly greeted me as I went out to the living room. I jumped back, not expecting her to be there. She’d been absent most mornings around that time. She saw that I was wearing clothes a teeny bit nicer than my usual moping loungewear. She couldn’t keep the hint of excitement out of her voice. “Going somewhere?”
I wanted to lie about it or play it off. Knowing her, it was going to come back to bite me in the butt if I did that. That was even if she didn’t see right through the lie the moment it left my mouth. “Rebecca asked if I wanted to watch Lizzy’s team have a training match.”
“Rebecca,” Shelly said flatly. Her eyes narrowed, looking like she was trying to put the name to a face. I could practically see the lightbulb go off above her head. I was surprised she didn’t know her immediately, given she was half of the reason I looked like I lost a fight in a butcher shop. “The strong-looking redhead? I haven’t seen her around much. She’s pretty.”
“She needed to learn how to use her phone,” I said, not really telling a lie. More like a half-truth, or just not the entire truth. Rebecca had needed to learn to use the phone. “We chatted for a bit, and she mentioned a match today. I thought it might be time to try and stop feeling sorry for myself.”
Suddenly, Shelly looked all serious. She got up and put a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t think I’d be saying this, since I’ve just wanted you to feel better again. Please don’t rush it. Just know that all of us want you to take it at your pace. If it’s too soon for you, that’s okay.”
“Thanks, that really does mean a lot.” That one was not a half-truth. “I do think I’m ready. Ready to try, if nothing else. I can see it on your face and their faces. It’s not been easy for anyone. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m so tired of those looks. I’m tired of feeling this way myself. I can’t just...stop living because something messed with my head.”
“You know, I wish you were just a normal eighteen-year-old.” Shelly shook her head. When she looked at me again, she was smiling. “You’re not nearly impulsive enough. You actually think things through too much. Go out and drink at a party or something so I can get mad at you. Don’t actually do that. I will be mad, and I think Mom’s ghost would haunt me forever if I knowingly let it happen.”
“Weren’t you the same way at eighteen?” I asked, remembering how Shelly was when she was younger, ignoring the uncomfortable chill I felt when she brought up the idea of Mom having a ghost. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever seen her have fun, which was a terrible thought to have about your family. “Thinking about it, weren’t you always like this?”
“Yeah, but you have an entirely different set of problems that I couldn’t handle.” She walked back to the bar and started to play on her laptop.
“I just like to go with the flow as best I can. I’m not good at making big decisions.”
I plopped down on the couch and started to watch news. It was all about people with Anomalies, or the “Enhanced Humans”, as some news stations desperately tried to make stick to the public’s general vocabulary. They even capitalized it every time, like we really were just something completely inhuman. I wasn’t a big fan of that name. According to a few texts from Lori, we had many more people revealing they had Anomalies of their own once they realized there may have been an explanation for all the crazy things that happened around them. All the ones interviewed resented Dii Consentes and their actions. Some sympathized with the goal of wanting people with powers to be recognized, but that had been muddled by the terrorist attacks. There were still plenty of normal people who were against us entirely.
Seeing everyone talk about it reminded me that I hadn’t texted Chloe in a long time either. I pulled out my phone, and when I saw that I hadn’t replied to her last text for nearly a month, I hesitated. We weren’t friends, per se, though I did enjoy hearing about how other places were handling the whole superpowers thing, particularly a major university. The casual, easy conversation with her was nice. Through gritted teeth and a wince, I texted out an apology and just left it at I was going through some stuff. I added in that my upcoming graduation was stressing me out.
Away from the world of my phone, the news parroted the same stuff over and over. They were true pros at taking a thirty-second conversation and stretching it out over two hours. I felt my eyes glaze over watching it and I almost fell back asleep. I had started thinking about what new decorations I wanted in the living room, something I’d never cared about before, just to stay awake. How cool would a model ship have been above the fake fireplace? I was spared from a poorly timed nap and worse interior decorating decisions by a knock on the door. My phone told me it was a couple minute before nine, so that narrowed the list of people it could have been to just a few.
I opened the door, being met with bright red hair for the second time in as many days. Rebecca was wearing a green dress that ended just above her knees, some black leggings, and gray sneakers. It was a simple and very nice outfit. I offered Rebecca breakfast again, but she politely declined. She saw my sister and got a little red in the face. They exchanged small waves and smiles with each other. Rebecca grabbed at the hem of her skirt, looking eager to get going. I waved to Shelly and told her I loved her, scooting past Rebecca and locking the door behind me. We walked for about a minute in silence. When we were far enough away from my apartment that I was positive there was no way Shelly could hear us, I asked her about it.
“Does my sister bother you?” I tried not to sound offended.
“Ah, no,” she said in a hurry. “I’ve just been meeting so many new people. I’m a bit, what do some of you guys like to say today? Oh, my social battery is drained. I overheard a guy saying that the other day. Anyway, I’ve talked to her before. She’s nice and all, I’m just not looking to talk to someone.”
“As long as there’s no bad blood, everything’s good. Sorry to hear that meeting all these people is taking so much out of you.” I didn’t touch on why I might’ve been the exception.
We took the only path I knew to get down there. The walk felt like it was getting shorter each time, even with the month-long gap between my trips. We passed the same old homes, stores, and restaurants. Nearly each one I wanted to go visit. More than once, I had to stop myself from asking Rebecca if she’d like to go grab more food from the few cafés we passed. I didn’t think it’d hurt to wait a bit longer.
In the training hallway, just about all the room-usage papers were filled up. No sounds could be heard through the walls, but the small windows in the doors showed that no one was shy about training anymore. I had to remind myself that while I might be special among normal humans, there were still thousands of people with Anomalies, and they weren’t going to wait up for me to get better. More people had found their way to Luna when they had reasonable explanations for why they might’ve accidentally lit their school or work on fire too. Mrs. Carmichael had to have been keeping busy enough to yank her hair out.
“Here it is,” Rebecca said, pointing toward the sheet of paper in the plastic container. It was booked for a couple hours, and we were already past their scheduled start time, so they were probably already inside. The participants were Lizzy, Julio, and Braden. Rebecca looked confused. “Aren’t there supposed to be four?”
“We only had three when we got you,” I replied with a shrug. I wasn’t sure how married to the four-person team idea Mrs. Carmichael actually was. “Maybe Rosie is busy with something else.”
Entering the room, I noticed that there wasn’t anyone in the waiting area. We made our way to the upstairs viewing area that was, thankfully, empty as well. I had a feeling in my gut that told me these spectator seats wouldn’t be empty for long. If more people were starting to use the rooms, folks who wanted to watch would follow suit. It was only a matter of time.
“Do you know what either of them can do?” I asked, looking at both guys. They were facing each other from opposite ends of the court. I recalled Julio being shorter than Braden, so it was easy to pick him out. He had a hoodie obscuring most of his face. Lizzy stood between them, leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her chest. She looked more like a referee than a participant. A bored one at that. From my seat, it looked like she might’ve been examining her nails.
“I don’t. I hope they’re interesting. There are some wild powers out there.” Rebecca looked lost in some memories. “I took away the powers of one guy who could make elephant trunks appear out of the ground and use them as weapons. They made a bunch of noises too. One of the first things I did when I got here was make someone show me a video about elephants. I had to know if they were making the same sound.”
“What?” I asked, stunned. I envisioned a man laughing maniacally in a never-ending field of gray elephant trunks, all of them smashing everything to bits. “How have I not heard about that guy today?”
“History’s pretty selective as is. We didn’t all have cameras and computers in our pockets, and not even everyone was literate. It was easier to get away with stuff back in my day. I removed his power anyway. He probably wasn’t eager to let the world know about that.”
“That makes me glad we found Rose.” I thought about how many people thought they were just crazy if they saw someone use an Anomaly in public before McLeod outed the whole thing. I had a small hope that some of those people were being smug about how right they were all along.
“She married someone wealthy. That made it easier for her to make her story known.” A warm smile spread across Rebecca’s face. “Her gumption to make sure what happened was documented she got from her grandmother. She would never see anything unfinished, for better and worse. She hated stories with no concrete ending.”
“How do you take away someone’s power anyway?” I asked. Even with her noticeable muscles, Rebecca wasn’t the scariest looking person around. She looked like a child compared to the knight we fought in the Tomb. I had to keep reminding myself that she was arguably the strongest person in the building.
“I touch them with the palm of either hand.” She held up her open hand and showed me the little target markings that had popped up in the car after we got out of the Tomb. “It can go through clothing. I just need to touch a person. People here haven’t been lining up to shake my hand.”
She looked and sounded surprisingly hurt when she said it. Her eyes fell to the marks. They were unusual as is, and once word got out what she could do, there was no chance she could keep that Anomaly hidden. Shrugging, I took her hand in mine and gave it a firm shake. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she shook my hand back.
Maybe that was part of the issue she had at Luna. I had trouble seeing Lori or Lizzy reacting that way. From what I knew of them, they were such nice ladies. Those two didn’t represent the entirety of Luna by a long shot, though. A lot of the people probably held their powers in high regard and would be distraught if something happened to them. While I could understand that mindset, it didn’t make it right.
“You know, it’s funny,” I said, checking if they had started sparring down there yet. Judging from Lizzy’s still-bored expression, they had not. “If you didn’t have your voice power, and you only had the ability to block other Anomalies, you wouldn’t even have a power at all in a normal world.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Is...is that funny?” Rebecca asked. She looked confused, like she was just trying to piece together what I said and find any humor in it.
“I thought it was interesting.” My face went red thinking I’d said something weird or nonsensical.
Luck was on my side, because the sparring session began before I could worry more about how I might have embarrassed myself. Lizzy pulled out her phone and tapped her screen a few times. Right when I thought she was making a phone call, rock formations appeared out of the ground. This development didn’t seem to surprise any of the three down in the room, but Rebecca and I weren’t expecting it. Terrain modification for the training rooms? That was pretty awesome. Lizzy barked some command and took a step back, and the fight was on
Julio lowered his head, flipped back his hood, and two...things burst through his short hair. They were an off-white color, contrasting against his dark hair. Braden took cover behind one of the rocks that Lizzy called up. After some dust cleared from the impact, I realized that they were antlers that had grown out of Julio’s head. They were embedded into the rock pillar, where a huge crack surrounded the entry points. Some of the branching parts of the antlers made their way into the rock as well, leaving tiny puncture marks over the entire thing.
“Wow.” I couldn’t comprehend how those worked or what they must feel like. Julio’s antlers crossed at least twenty feet almost instantly. There weren’t any branching bits until the very ends; the part that was supposed to hit Braden. Could he control how much and where they grew?
“Jeez, he makes our powers look tame, doesn’t he?” Rebecca asked, nudging me with her elbow. Since just about all I could do was make a floating hand, I couldn’t disagree with that assessment.
Julio’s antlers receded and went back to his head. They returned slower than they went out. Given the distance between him and myself, I might’ve just been seeing things, but I was pretty sure there were two little nubs in his hair. The damage in the rock was impressive for just a sparring match attack. He either didn’t know his own strength or they weren’t pulling their punches against each other.
I realized I had scooted toward the edge of my seat. In the time I took to readjust my position before looking back at the room, something had changed. I didn’t know what exactly it was, but something was different. It was just like those side-by-side pictures where a single miniscule element was removed or added, and you had to find the difference between them. While I searched for the change, Julio tensed up and started looking too. He lifted both his feet and checked the floor beneath him, as if he might’ve stepped in something gross and needed to scrape it off.
Braden was still standing behind the same rock he used for cover with only his right hand visible to me. Out of it, there was some kind of thick, black goop dripping from his fingertips to the ground, landing in small puddles. I thought that it might have been tar, but when it hit the ground, it raced around to the other side of the rock. There it started to pool and bubble, a shadowy figure slowly rising from the mess. A little gross? Yes. Awesome? Absolutely. Reminded me of the shadowy hallucinations I dealt with for years? I didn’t dwell on that.
When it fully emerged, it mostly solidified and took the shape of a human. Some bits of goop continued to drip from its frame onto the ground. It twitched and jerked unnaturally. There were red glowing specks where its eyes should have been. The rest of it was pure black, giving me similar vibes to the knight and his black armor. In its right arm, it held a sword made from whatever substance its body was. It lumbered slowly toward Julio, each step looking pained and labored.
That’s when I realized how Braden created it.
There was one bright light above the combat area, and no matter where I looked, there wasn’t a single shadow to be spotted. That’s why the room was different in a way I didn’t immediately notice. I couldn’t help the grin that broke out on my face. Lizzy had a pretty wicked team under her command.
“What is that thing?” Rebecca asked. She looked unsettled by it, and I didn’t blame her. That thing was creepy.
“The one hiding behind the rock,” I said, pointing toward Braden, “I think he can control shadows.”
I looked down and noticed that we still had our shadows, as did everything else in the room that I could see. Maybe they weren’t allowed to use things from outside the combat area. Or maybe he had a highly limited range or poor control. He did look like a nervous guy from that first meeting I had with him. The power alone was already a shock from what I knew about him. It was sneaky, maybe befitting a timid guy like him. Its applications were deadly too.
The more I thought about it, the less sure I was about his Anomaly. If he could control shadows and manifest them into tangible objects, why not just use the shadow behind Julio to make a blade that could attack his blind side? That would make more sense, at least it did to me. “Actually, I think he can steal them.”
“Steal them?” Rebecca questioned. We both watched the shadow being’s movements become crisper and more precise with each passing second. From behind his cover, Julio was trying to impale it with his antlers, but every time they hit, the shadow just reformed whatever area was hit when the antlers pulled back.
“When he made that thing, it all dripped from his fingers like goop. I think he can, like, hold onto the shadows he gathers.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that’s how it worked. It was just a working theory. No matter the mechanics behind it, it was incredible. Knowing how he made it would only be part of being able to stop it anyway.
The shadow being found the rock that Julio had just taken refuge behind. Its “eyes” appeared to glow a little brighter as it raised its sword. I was worried for Julio’s wellbeing in that moment, but he swiftly proved my worries unfounded. The shadow blade slammed into an antler shield. They were like those shovel kinds of antlers on a caribou, and with how he manipulated them, they shielded his entire body completely. One benefit to being a shorter guy was that he didn’t need to cover as much.
The shadow kept swinging and beating on the shield, slowly pushing Julio back. There were small cracks beginning to form in his antlers. Julio was brought down to one knee, and it was clear he was struggling against the onslaught. Bits of bone started to fall to the floor, big enough that I could see them. If he didn’t yield or have a trick up his sleeve...
The next strike was powerful. It shattered right through Julio’s crumbling defenses. The blade embedded itself in his shoulder. From what I could tell, it wasn’t a terribly deep wound. Blood leaked out of it and black goop went in the open gash. Lizzy immediately threw up her hand and called the match in favor of Braden. The shadow returned to its ooze-like state in the ground before it split, each shadow going back to everything in the room.
“I thought that’d go on longer, like a movie or something.” I sat down, feeling a bit underwhelmed by the sparring match. Then I felt disgusted at myself for wanting a simple sparring match to go longer for my entertainment. They weren’t supposed to be all-out brawls. If that broke out in a city, innocents would suffer in a long battle.
“Movie...movie...” Rebecca trailed off. Then she snapped her fingers. “Those are the moving picture things, right? Well, those and television.”
“Yep.” Watching Julio, he seemed in pretty good shape, considering he just had a blade sunk into his shoulder. He looked like he could have kept going, but it was smart for Lizzy to call it as a precaution. She waved in a medic to help her boys. “Have you seen a movie yet?”
“No, I’ve stuck with books,” she said. “A lot of the stuff on screens have been a bit overstimulating for me. I get a headache trying to use the phone thing, but it’s so much easier to get books now. I love how many there are to read.”
“There might be some easier shows to start you out with. A lot of it is easy on the eyes if you know where to look.”
The medic finished healing Julio and departed the room, not wasting any time getting out of there. Julio rotated and tested his shoulder, doing some stretches and jumping jacks. He gave Lizzy a thumbs up and she signaled for the second match to begin. This time, instead of rocks, there was a large pool with various bits of land rotating around the center, creating constantly moving tiny islands.
That one didn’t go as well for Braden. With less shadows to pull from the stone pillars, his creation wasn’t nearly as strong. Julio also figured out its weakness: an antler through the head. Once he skewered it through the head, it returned to its puddle form and rushed back to Braden. He didn’t have enough time to reform it against Julio’s offense, so he got impaled in the shoulder and knocked in the water, ending the second bout quickly. The healer didn’t look thrilled to be in there with those two, but he did his job and fixed up Braden nicely.
He looked really discouraged when Lizzy called them over to talk to them. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but they broke their small huddle with both guys returning to their original spots. They were still talking toward each other, throwing in some head shakes or nods. If they were fighting, it looked like Julio won, because Braden’s shoulders slumped.
He gathered up the three shadows of the people in the room once again. Instead of forming them into another warrior, he formed a black orb between his hands, about the size of a baseball. He nodded and Julio did his defensive antler trick, completely covering his entire body. Pointed black lines shot out from the orb and struck the shield.
Braden repeated that for what felt like hours. The instant one made contact, he retracted it, getting a bit faster each time. The attacks weren’t just retracting faster either; they were coming out of the black ball quicker too. Julio was being pushed back again, and while it was not as hard as he had been against the shadow being, he still had to brace himself. Whenever a crack formed in the antlers, Julio would repair it, like how I wanted to with my own barriers.
I checked my phone and I must have lost track of time. It was already nearing eleven, meaning their training time was almost up. Lizzy checked her phone and realized it too, calling their practice to a halt. She waved them over and gave them both congratulatory pats on their shoulders, something Julio took much better than Braden. Had I really just spent over an hour watching one guy fire the same shadow beams from a ball?
“Who’s the one who can control the shadows?” Rebecca asked, her face nearly pressed against the glass.
“Braden...something. I don’t know his full name.”
“I wonder how that works.” She stepped back and we started to walk down the stairs to the room that connected the combat area to the hallway. “Would he be able to do the same thing in a room with no light, or can he only pull shadows created by the absence of light? Well, I guess that’s what every shadow is, but you know what I mean. The thing he did with the stones.”
I wasn’t sure, but trying to imagine the cans and cannots of it all was threatening to give me a headache. Leave the weird shadow magic at home and just give my equally weird shimmer magic. With my brain being connected to it, at least that stuff made sense to me. Thinking about it, our powers were probably similar in that regard. I got excited when I considered I might be able to make my own warrior to fight for me.
Braden was the first one back in. The poor guy was just about yanked aside by Rebecca, who was firing a hundred questions a second at him about his power. Apparently, the little duel had recharged her social battery a little. His expression was asking me for help, but I could only give him a look of sympathy and a shrug in return. He was a good sport about answering her questions once he could get a word in, though. Rebecca’s face lit up with everything he said, which got a smile out of me.
Lizzy and Julio lagged behind a bit, chatting and strategizing about different ways that he could use his antlers. Something about trying to expand the area he could cover with his shield, I think. Julio had this glint in his eye whenever he talked about his power. No doubt he took a lot of pride in what he could do, even if it was kind of weird. I guess when you’re weird among the weird, having unshakable confidence was a requirement.
“Hey, Ethan,” Lizzy said, barely passing me a glance, before resuming her chat with Julio. Then she did a double-take, realizing I was actually there in front of her again. “It’s good to see you again!”
“It’s really good to see you again.” I waved and smiled at her. “Sorry that it took me so long.”
“Dude, don’t sweat that.” Her face showed nothing but kindness and understanding with her smile. Even her scar seemed to be grinning at me. “Everyone has times where they need to fight through their battles. None of us are mad at you for taking as long as you needed.”
The understanding made me uncomfortable, though I still appreciated it more than I could put in words. I was still eager to change the subject away from myself. “So, doing training with your team?”
Lizzy’s eyes lit up at the mention of her team, like a mom who was just invited to gush about the accomplishments of her children. She pulled Julio in close, something that looked easy given that he was a good few inches shorter than her. He didn’t seem to mind too much, throwing a cocky grin my way. “Sure am. These guys have awesome Anomalies. Guessing you saw?”
“Antlers and shadows,” I confirmed. “Some spooky stuff there.”
“When you guys are ready, we should have a four-on-four match.” Lizzy looked excited at her own idea. With the offensive capabilities of her team and her ability to bring out ways for them to train, I didn’t share that same enthusiasm.
“We’ll see. I need to catch up to you guys and she’s still adjusting.” I nodded my head toward Rebecca, who was still talking Braden’s ear off. Her green eyes sparkled with glee going over the shadow powers. “How would that work out? One of her powers let’s her take away someone’s Anomaly by touch.”
“If she touches someone, they have to sit out the rest of the exercise,” Lizzy suggested. “Oh, or they could just try to fight without using their powers. That’s mostly what Lori and I have to do anyway.”
“What can you do?” Julio asked, looking me up and down, like he was analyzing how worthy of a match I was. I realized he was trying to size me up to make himself look strong in front of Lizzy. I had no interest in dating her, and I was sure she felt the same, so it was almost cute to see him try and look all tough. It was at least nicer than when Alex first sized me up.
“Um, I don’t really know how to explain it,” I admitted, having difficulty trying to wrap my head around it. I wasn’t even sure if I had begun to scratch the surface of what I could do. “I guess it’s sort of like Braden?”
At the mention of his name, his head turned toward us, but Lizzy waved him back to his one-sided conversation. No life raft for him there as the redhead pulled him back under the ocean of questions she had.
“You control shadows?” Julio was confused. I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t making it easy to understand.
“No, I can make these kinds of shimmering creations. I’ve only done barriers, small shielding on my skin, a hand, and...a sort of ball.” I shook my head, remembering the ball that I shoved into Eric’s chest.
“I don’t get it,” Julio said flatly. I couldn’t even show him since other people couldn’t seem to see what I created.
“Oh, you can make a hand now?” Lizzy asked. Since she’d helped me with the barrier trick, she understood it a bit more. “When did you figure that out?”
“When I called my sister from the hotel room. You were there.”
“Huh, I don’t remember that. Anyway, nice job. That’s impressive.”
We chatted for a few more minutes about how everyone was doing and holding up. Lizzy had been doing her best to spend at least some time each day with some of her team, which was paying dividends, because they were all getting along great. Apparently, Mrs. Carmichael had sent out eight total teams on missions similar to ours, but we were the only one that came back with anything. Ours was the wild goose chase that yielded some results. That included a little girl and a fight that almost got me killed. That didn’t make her view any of the teams as lesser, since they were mostly old legends anyway. We just happened to get lucky to find ours.
Mrs. Carmichael had to announce what happened, both as a morale booster and as an explanation for why around twenty-four people left the Luna complex within forty-eight hours of each other. One result of us being the only team to come back with something was all of us had sort of become popular. People were stopping Lori all the time since she was the leader, and she was too kind to tell them she was busy, so she’d answer their questions and play along. Alex had no shortage of people trying to get his time either. No doubt that was a great source of joy for our small captain.
“Jeez, sounds like Rebecca and I have been smart just staying off the radar,” I said. Talking was one thing, but when people got excited, they tended to forget about personal space boundaries.
“I’d say so,” Lizzy agreed. She nudged me in the ribs with her elbow. “You’re the one that has to worry. Get ready to beat those girls off with a stick. Ladies love a guy who put his life on the line to save a child. Makes their maternal instincts go wild.”
“Great,” I said, wincing. “Beating people away with sticks is just the thing I need right now.”